Luck of the Irish

Have you seen those cute Easter egg ornaments that they have all over the place right now? I like them and I bought a set, along with the tree to hang them from in the Target dollar section a few weeks ago. I decided that if I had some little shamrock ornaments, I could set the tree out now and have it work for St. Patrick's day and then change them out for Easter. Well, I looked all over for little shamrock ornaments, like my eggs, and couldn't find them anywhere. Being a DIYer, that wasn't really a road block, I just had to find 3D shamrocks and my glue gun and I were good to go!

I found them at Michael's at 40% off

Then I scored green glitter ribbon for $1 I will admit that this wasn't quite what I thought it was. I thought it was green glitter wire, instead of ribbon, but this was great too. I was kind of disappointed that they didn't have any other options (they were all too wide or too Valentine's) but green glitter worked for me :)

Shamrock ornament

Shamrock tree!

It took me about 20 minutes to make 16 of them, although most of the time was spent trying to peel the hot glue strings off my fingers and the shamrocks.

Emergency!

Today was my birthday. WF came running into my room and told me I had to get up because he needed me in his room. I asked what was wrong and he told me it was an emergency and I needed to come right now. He seemed a little shifty, so I went to the bathroom first and then joined him in his room. I asked what the emergency was and he yelled "It's a birthday emergency" and gave me jazz hands. Then he presented me with my presents. He got me a card and a small cutting board with a pairing knife. He also made me pumpkin bars with help from my mom. Apparently, they went to Dollar Tree to get me a card and young guy overheard him talking about getting his mom a card. The guy gave him a dollar and told him he also had to get his mom a present! After appropriate thank yous, they spent a long time looking for something that I would like. He eventually settled on the cutting board because I've been complaining that I want a new cutting board for the kitchen. :) On the way home he said "hey, now mom has a knife to cut her pumpkin bars with! Best present ever!" LOL All my presents have been hidden in the house since Tuesday and I had no idea.

RF complained that I don't ever want anything for birthdays so yesterday when my headphones broke, he had a fit when I tried to by myself a new pair. Instead, he went and bought the pair I picked out and had MF give them to me. I got a nice card from work and a raspberry mocha and a cake pop after school :)

But quite possibly the best part of my birthday was the fact that I did absolutely NOTHING after I picked the kids up at school. I bought KFC for dinner, put on my jammies and spent the afternoon/evening sitting in my chair. i didn't have to run anyone anywhere or do much of anything. It was the best night of the week! :)

What's for dinner

I'm really tired of answering the question "What's for dinner?" Even though I make a menu every week, my kids still insist on asking this question a hundred times, each, per day. I decided to take an idea from Pintrest and do something about it. On Pintrest, they took picture frames and made a weekly calendar, that you erase and write in each week to keep your family on track. I use my calendar on my phone so I just wanted menu boards.

First, I went to the dollar store and picked up cheap frames. The hardest part of this whole thing was finding frames I liked and it took some doing.

Then I went to the fabric store and scoured the remnant bin for an acceptable fabric. To do 5 8x10 frames, you need less than a yard, so there is no need to pay full price, unless you just can't find something you like in the remnants. To my great delight, our local fabric store in moving in a few months and have already started putting things on clearance, including 50% off remnants, so I scored a yard of flannel for $1.25! The best fabric for the job is lighter colored, solid or lightly patterned, fairly thin fabric.

RF ripped the tripod off the back of the frames for me, since they were just in the way and then I put them on the fabric and marked for cuts. I cut a little extra, to make sure that it would cover completely.

Then you place your cut fame in the frame and secure the back in place.

Here you can see how the extra fabric I left earlier leave the back looking a little lumpy, so you now you can trim that excess fabric, leaving it a little longer under the tabs that are holding the back in place.

The finished product!

Now you can get out your Command Picture hanging strips and hang your frames up. My frames were very thin, so I ended up cutting my strips in half and using one half on each side, instead of one full one in the middle.

Here they are, after RF took a lot of time measuring and hanging them all up exactly level

This is after I took them down, wrote on them and put them back up.

The best part of using the Command strips, is that I can pull them down to write on them each week instead of having to stand on the table to reach them.

Also, instead of trimming your fabric, you could use a bit of hot glue and tack the fabric to the back of the frame, to keep the excess from being in the way. I don't do well with commitment to decor, so leaving it loose works best for me. This way, I can change out my fabric for different holidays or as the mood stikes me for a change.

This was a pretty easy craft and didn't take a lot of time. Most of the time was spent measuring and hanging the pictures. It was also cheap (which is my favorite kind of craft). $5 on the frames, $1.25 on the fabric and I already had the Command strips and dry erase marker.

Hopefully, this will end the question of what we are having for dinner!